The first half of this year was the most prosperous day for Wang Xing. With the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic in 2121, the take-away market took off against the trend, but unexpectedly reaped a big bonus. As the biggest dividend beneficiary in the take-away market, Meituan has not only increased its revenue, but also made its market value arrogant, which also made Wang Xing live a rare and leisurely life. This can also be seen from Wang Xing's private "tree hole" meal.
after all, during the epidemic, the bright data of take-away business was enough for investors and Wang Xing to temporarily ignore some shortcomings in the development of Meituan. However, when the epidemic was controlled and the tide began to fade, the real contest of take-away enterprises just began. Especially when you are hungry and complete a new round of gaining momentum and launch a fierce offensive again, looking back, the epidemic just accelerated the arrival of the second half of the takeaway, and the second half war between Hungry and the US Mission has just begun.
First, after gaining momentum, the firepower is fully open. If you are hungry, sharpen your knife.
On October 4, if you are hungry, it was announced that the "11 billion subsidy" will continue to upgrade: the coverage of cities will be expanded from the initial 24 cities to 124 cities, and the category of subsidies will also be expanded from catering to all categories of life services, and the number of businesses and investment will continue to grow. This is the third upgrade in just three months since the introduction of the 11 billion subsidy in August, which is unusual.
compared with the past, if you are hungry, this subsidy is not only strong, but also fast to upgrade. Its strategic determination and determination are extraordinary. Judging from the rhythm of its active attack and rapid upgrade, this is a "war" that has been planned in advance, but it has been waiting for the right "fighter" when it is hungry-choose to attack at this time, because it is in a better state of "getting ready" when it is hungry.
At the recent Alibaba Investment Conference in 2121, Chloe Wang, CEO of Hungry, revealed several key messages: In the past year, Hungry and Ali Group were finally integrated, not only in terms of users and traffic, but also in infrastructure such as products and technologies of Hungry, which marked the complete integration of the two. This is where the initiative is when you are hungry this time.
on the one hand, after the integration is completed, the "engine upgrade" is realized if you are hungry. Today's hungry, including word of mouth and wholly-owned acquisition of customers such as cloud merchants in Taiwan, and the three have achieved internal integration and integration, and their business linkages are more and more in line. This is not only conducive to the cross-user guidance of the take-away industry with high frequency and low frequency, so that the store-to-store and home-to-home business can form a joint force, but also at the operation end, laying a foundation for helping merchants to upgrade digitally and improve operational efficiency. Not to mention, after the completion of the integration, the traffic and user bonus brought by the entire Ali ecology to hungry also greatly increased its growth engine.
on the other hand, in the process of integration, the state of integration while fighting when hungry also provides a good opportunity for change, which helps it find a balance between growth and efficiency and achieve "quality" improvement and healthy growth. For example, because of the optimization of merchant structure and the increase of loyal consumers, the unit price of hungry customers is constantly increasing. Backed by Ali's digital ecology, it also makes hungry consumers operate more accurately-nearly 81% of weekly repurchase users and nearly 91% of monthly repurchase users are evidence.
The most important thing is that after the integration, the empowerment and imagination space brought by Ali's ecological hunger began to be released smoothly. From the user's perspective, 45% of the new users who are hungry now come from Alipay, and in the future, there will be high-traffic super app blessings used by consumers such as mobile phones Taobao and Gaode, which has a lot of room for growth. From the perspective of business growth, except for Taoxianda, who sent Shangchao, and Ali, who sent medicine, the catering through the hummingbird open platform increased by 1.21%, and all of them still maintained a high-speed growth state.
It is worth noting that, after deep integration, there are more differentiated products that are hungry. For example, the "food card" consumers can eat first and then pay, because there is Alipay's extra exclusive quota support for flower beds. Another example is the use of sesame credit to distribute the products to the store, such as "second province", which has added a lot of weapons to the differentiated competition of hungry.
In a word, Hungry, backed by Ali, has advantages in ecology, digital engine and head business. After deep integration with Ali, its ecological growth flywheel finally started. This is the best fighter that it has been waiting for for more than a year, and it is also the beginning of releasing all its combat power when it is hungry.
second, after the low tide, the hidden worries reappeared, and the US Mission's card will be exhausted.
The epidemic bonus has enabled the US Mission to harvest bright data, boosted the revenue of the US Mission, and brought about a sharp rise in market value, which is a good thing. However, after the short-term dividend of the epidemic subsided, it has become more difficult for the beautiful group to continue to make the data bright and meet the expectations of capital and market. If the data is not good, the market value will be difficult to maintain or continue to rise, which is the pain point of the US Mission.
compared with the hungry people who were in the gaining stage and still changing. As a listed company, Meituan's food and beverage take-out is a big part of its revenue, which can be called a "barometer of market value" and bears much greater pressure to realize cash. During the epidemic period, the incident that the multi-local catering association angered the US delegation was a good proof. This has also caused netizens to say that "Hungry is changing, and the US Mission is realizing"-the former is accumulating cards and the latter is constantly playing cards. Compared with hungry now, Meituan may fall into the dilemma of running out of cards, and it is facing three major challenges.
the first is the ecological level. In the second half of the takeaway, the competition between Hungry and Meituan is definitely an ecological war, which is also the focus of Meituan's current efforts-to become a super app and build an ecological matrix of borderless business.
However, judging from the actions of Meituan, such as painting and renaming after it acquired mobike, and completely commenting after it ran out of comments, Meituan is constantly "walking alone", which is essentially a lack of ecological empowerment, and the parent platform is still in the stage of continuous blood sucking and shrinking and strengthening. Similarly, in the quasi-ecology of Tencent, the US Mission is still attacking in all directions-group buying is a lot of hard work, wine travel is against Tongcheng Yilong, travel is against Didi, and at the same time, it does not forget to spoil health and medical beauty. Looking at the superposition of the two, it is difficult for Meituan to obtain more ecological support besides completing its own closed loop of internal circulation.
followed by the engine. As a listed company, Meituan is still too dependent on the take-away catering business for blood transfusion. In the face of the tens of billions of subsidies that are hungry, if Meituan follows, it will inevitably cut profits and affect the group's blood transfusion, thus affecting the development of other businesses. If you don't follow, you will inevitably lose market share.
The most important thing is that compared with the Internet giants such as Ali and Tencent who have laid out new engines such as cloud services and artificial intelligence in the era of big data, the future new engine of Meituan seems unclear. Taking the cloud business as an example, as an important infrastructure for digital upgrading, Meituan voluntarily gave up the cloud business when it should have been running at a high speed, and it was much more difficult to start again in the future, not to mention the realization efficiency of Meituan's scale today. It is also difficult to support. The old engine of Meituan is facing a consuming enemy, and the new engine is not clear enough, which naturally hinders its development upper limit.
It's an overdraft for Meituan to re-realize, rather than pay more attention to optimization and change. The direct consequence is that when we are hungry now, the firepower is full, and there are not many cards that Meituan can play. In the face of the picky market and capital, as well as the pressure to maintain continuous growth, the space for the US Mission to move has also become smaller, and only by continuing to run fast along the road of realization.
Generally speaking, the epidemic has made Meituan grow, but this growth is more reflected in the realization level, such as revenue and profit growth, and the market value has become higher. It is not based on its own ecological improvement, engine upgrade and other changes. In essence, it is equivalent to playing cards instead of increasing the chips in its hands.
Third, in the second half of take-away, the protracted blue-yellow war is welcoming a "new turning point"
As far as the take-away market is concerned, the situation of the US delegation and the hungry duopoly will exist for a long time, and it is bound to be a protracted war of attrition based on the size of both sides. The resources, strategic layout and offensive and defensive rhythm behind the two will all affect the final direction of the war-the number of means and skills will determine how fast you can go, while the internal strength will determine how far you can go.
The epidemic is like a catalyst, adding a wave of bonus to the take-away market and boosting the early arrival of the second half. Of course, in the face of the epidemic dividend, it is understandable for both, whether it is the ready-made change, upgrading the engine, or accelerating the harvest and improving the realization of the US Mission. Hungry, with the support of the resources behind Ali, it has the confidence to slow down and optimize, and it also has its own needs to wait for ecological integration and upgrading. As a listed company, Meituan has its own pressure and temptation to realize cash, and it has gained a lot in the short term by accelerating the realization with the help of epidemic dividends. Simply put, if you are hungry, you will push back the realization, while the US group will harvest in advance.
However, the timing of the early closing of the net by the US delegation is debatable, because the war is not over yet, and it can even be said that it has just begun. While the US delegation played all the cards in advance, it may also face a shortage of food and grass in the decisive battle stage.
on the one hand, after the integration and integration with Ali resources, whether it is users, traffic, technology and marketing means, there are undoubtedly more means and deeper internal forces relying on Ali's hungry. On the other hand, the good cards that are hungry have just been integrated, and the cards of Meituan have been played almost the same, which means that Meituan used the superior cards in its hands to play the inferior or medium cards that are hungry. Then, when you are hungry now and take out the superior cards, if the US Mission does not have enough chips to deal with it, it may be difficult to defend.
data doesn't lie. According to the penetration data of the takeaway APP recently released by Questmobile, the market share gap between Meituan and Hungry is narrowing sharply. This is a very important signal, which means that a series of actions before Hungry are bringing about market changes, deep water reversal or happening quietly.
What deserves the attention of the US delegation is that Ali's strongest place is not only resources and technology, but also its strategic layout and ability to fight a protracted war. After the rapid rise of Taobao special edition this year, it is a good example that Pinduoduo is quickly clamped down.
Therefore, when the strategic layout of Ali Corps is completed and it is determined to make a move, it may be the time to really harvest the battlefield. This is also the reason why the author thinks that the second half of the takeaway has just started, and the US Mission will face unprecedented challenges.
in a word, if the US delegation, which was in full swing before, failed to kill the hungry in the dormant period. Then, if you are hungry now, you will probably suffer the most powerful blow to the US Mission. It can be seen that the drama has just begun.